Recently, I’ve had conversations with people with a very specific question. Should we baptize new believers in the name of Jesus Christ, or in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? The reason this question arises is that the New Testament doesn’t seem to have a consistent teaching on this point. When Jesus tells the apostles how to do it, he says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and... Read more

Recently, I interacted with someone who believes that the apostle Paul was not really an apostle. He argued that the earliest Christians didn’t accept Paul’s authority. Views like this one seem to have become more popular recently—it seems like many people would rather not listen to Paul. But in fact, this is a new view. Actually, the early church believed that Paul was an apostle and had authority. In this article, I’ll cite some of the evidence. Three of the... Read more

In my last article, I discussed why free will and God’s foreknowledge aren’t contradictory. I pointed out that knowledge is always the result of, and not the cause of a fact. So God’s foreknowledge of an event is dependent on that event, rather than determining that event. In this article, I’m going to discuss some objections to God’s foreknowledge and human free will, and show how this understanding of foreknowledge answers them. First, here’s the definition of free will that I... Read more

One common objection to Christianity goes like this: if God knows what we’re going to do before we do it, how can we have free will? Free will is the ability to make a choice oneself, rather than to be determined by someone else to make your choice. Typically, you don’t have free will unless you are actually able to choose between two live options. Jane’s hamburger dilemma To make this easier to think about, let’s create a scenario. Let’s... Read more

Recently, I’ve done some research into covenant theology, which I think has some good insights. However, I felt that it didn’t describe the early Christian faith with full accuracy. So I did a bit of research to find out what that view is called, and I wasn’t able to find a name. In this article, I’ll describe what I think the correct view is, and I’ll call it “Purpose Theology.” Covenant theology is the view that Scripture is best understood... Read more

Jesus’ prophecies about the future sometimes bother Christians. That’s because one of them seems like it might not have come true. But what if it already has? Matthew 24 records that “the disciples came to [Jesus] privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?'” (3 ESV). Jesus answers them by speaking of wars, etc., that would follow. He then says that the nations... Read more

In the Old Testament, the temple worship included instrumental accompaniment. But now that we’re in the New Testament era, should Christians use musical instruments in worship? In my opinion, there isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question. The New Testament doesn’t forbid musical instruments (I even play a few instruments myself). However, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that the New Testament church used musical instruments in their corporate worship. Anabaptists tend to be very reluctant to... Read more

In the West, it’s often assumed that there are two types of Christians—Catholic and Protestant. As an Anabaptist, I’m frequently called a Protestant. This isn’t so surprising. After all, Anabaptists believe that Christian doctrine should be based on Scripture. We also reject many of the traditions and developments of the Roman Catholic Church, as Protestants do. And after all, the Anabaptist movement originated around the same time as the Protestant movement did. However, most traditional Anabaptists wouldn’t consider ourselves Protestant.... Read more

One objection to Christianity in today’s internet atheism goes something like this: “There have been 3000 supposed gods throughout history. You don’t believe that they exist. But you do believe that your God exists. As atheists, we just take the natural next step. We believe that yours doesn’t exist either.” Of course, there are a lot of ways to answer this argument, since, as an argument, it’s logically fallacious. For one, just because there are a lot of ways to be... Read more

In my last post, I argued that advocating the death penalty is not the best way for solving the deep problems in our society. In this post, I’ll show that Christians should be very careful not to seek justice through retaliation. Furthermore, I suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with advocating for someone’s death, for any reason. First, this denies grace to a human being who may profit from it. If, in our minds, an individual becomes a blot... Read more